Web could run out of addresses next year, warn web experts

“In the last 10 years, the internet has become hugely important worldwide from a socio-economic perspective,” said Detlef Eckert, a director in the Commission’s information society and media directorate-general. “Only by ensuring that all devices connected to the internet are compatible with IPv6 can we stay connected and safeguard sustainable growth of the internet and the global digital economy, now and in the years to come.”

“We’ll be down to our last tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of web addresses by the end of next year,” warned Sam Pickles, lead enterprise engineer of F5 Networks. “New companies looking to establish a presence on the internet will have no option but to adopt the IPv6 address format. Many government and military organisations worldwide have adopted IPv6 for their internal systems already, and its adoption by companies, and eventually home users, is virtually certain.”

Switching to IPv6 is relatively straightforward, said Pickles, but will require significant investment from companies and internet service providers.

“Some additional spending will be required to migrate to the new addressing format, and ensure that systems using the old IPv4 format can interface with new IPv6 networks,” he said. “Initial installation of new equipment will most likely affect systems at the edge of the corporate network, interfacing with the internet, such as routers and firewalls.”

The move to the IPv6 protocol will also necessitate some changes to domestic set-ups, said Pickles, but it should be a relatively straightforward process. “Consumers will eventually also need to replace equipment in the home, although this is likely to be introduced by ISPs in gradual stages,” he said. “The most likely device needing replacement initially will be the home broadband router, connected to the phone line.”